Having problems with HDTV playback in Vista Media Center (VMC)? This is what I did to fix the jerky HD playback (but CPU utilization was not maxed out - that is an indicator of MPEG2 decoder problems) that I was getting:
Summary: What I had to end up doing was switch VMC from using the MPEG2 codec that Microsoft included with Vista to using PowerDVD’s MPEG2 decoder.
- Install Cyberlink PowerDVD (that worked for me, but you might have luck with nVidia’s PureVideo which is a trial edition)
- Download and run the Vista Media Center Decoder Utility (get it from this page)
- Switch the Video and Audio codecs from Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Decoder & Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder to the Cyberlink codecs (I used CyberLink SAC Video Decoder(PDVD7 HomeNetwork) & CyberLink Audio Decoder (PDVD7 UPnP))
- Press Set Defaults and restart the Media Center application (if you had it running) and you should be all set to go. (
Note: Krunker reports similar issues and also notes that you won’t be able to watch/record some channels that have some sort of broadcast flags in place if you use a third-party MPEG2 decoder (including PureVideo & PowerDVD) - I have seen this on HBO & TCM, but they will play with Microsoft’s MPEG2 Codec)
Thanks to Gary Whittaker of The Media Center Expert Blog for his Vista Media Center Decoder Utility.
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